Many medical diagnostic, surgical and interventional procedures rely on imaging tools to provide information descriptive of status of visually perceived representations of portions or organs of a patient. In part as a result of increasing sophistication of medical tools in general, and imaging apparatus in particular, more types of imaging devices are being adapted for application in the context of surgical procedures.
In many instances, medical tools capable of rendering images of organs or tissues have found great utility and have been adapted to facilitate types of surgery. These find application in many situations, and are very useful in situations where the surgeon cannot directly see the operating site, or when the features of interest are not amenable to direct visual inspection, or to enable comparison of a present image with other image data, among other instances. These applications have resulted in development of a broad variety of tools, including x-ray, CT and fluoroscopic visualizing aids, and many different types of optical imaging devices.
In turn, such applications frequently benefit when the imaging tool is mobile or portable, easily positioned to achieve a desired position and to hold the desired position, may be readily adjusted about an isocenter or patient-centric locus, may include capability for machine-driven positioning, provides a stable platform, and presents numerous other aspects somewhat unique to the operating room environment. These include need to be compliant with safety and regulatory requirements for medical imaging equipment, and to satisfy sterility requirements within the operating room, such as control of air borne particulates, compatibility with draping, and constraints relating to fluid containment and cleaning.
Accordingly, the resultant support systems for such visualization equipment include significant mechanical considerations in order to facilitate the required degrees of freedom in articulation and transportation. A suitable footprint and acceptable mobility, each adapted to the operating room environment, are important aspects. There may be need to provide capability for self-contained propulsion, and for onboard control and visualization aspects, together with suitable electrical power and signal sharing capabilities. Use of a modular ‘drop-in’ shielded electronics cabinet allows exchange or modification of control and/or signal processing apparatus. Other environmental apparatus, such as chillers, may be needed and may be directed to the imaging apparatus itself. Design, manufacture, operation and maintenance are all capable of some degree of benefit when similar requirements may be addressed using similarly-developed and operated equipment, to some extent.
In many imaging applications, pixelated detectors are increasingly employed to realize electronic digital representations of image data. In turn, digital techniques provide great imaging flexibility, such as, for example, overlay or direct comparison, on the fly, of various aspects and views from various times. For example, pre-surgery images can be available, in real time, in the operating room scenario, for comparison to images reflective of the present status of the same tissues. Many other types of special-purpose enhancements are now also possible. In some instances, imaging aids, such as contrast-enhancing agents, are introduced into the subject or patient to aid in increasing available data content from the imaging technique or techniques being employed.
Increasing sophistication of these imaging and visualization apparatus also result in significant cost, not only develop these devices, but also to acquire them, to train operators in using them, and service technicians to maintain them, and in educating physicians to be familiar with their capabilities and benefits. As a result, a significant investment is involved with respect to each such tool.
The advent of digital imaging technologies resulted in a large number of new medical applications and usages for imaging tools. Digital images are made up of pixels, and these images are generally visualized by assigning each pixel a numerical value corresponding to a color or a shade of gray, and then displaying that assigned representation in the corresponding position for that pixel on a graphical display. A digital image can be adjusted by varying the numerical values of each pixel, for example by forming each pixel as a weighted combination of images formed at different times, or formed from illumination from different spectral components or by combining images including light-emitting, shadowgraphic, and reflected image data. The raw image data is manipulated by software using algorithms and mathematical computations to optimize the image. These types of images, alone or in combination with other data, provide useful tools for improving medical procedures.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons discussed below, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present disclosure, there are needs in the art to provide more highly automated image computation engines and protocols for application and usage of such capabilities, in order to streamline gathering of information in support of increasingly stringent and exacting performance and economic standards in settings such as medical imaging.